“A pinch of salt” is often found in recipes. My mother used to keep her salt in a container wide enough to put her hand inside and bring out salt between her thumb and two fingers. This is literally a pinch! Salt has remarkable properties. It brings out the taste in food. It preserves meat and fish. Jesus told his followers they were “the salt of the earth.”Matthew Chapter 5 verse 13

So perhaps the pinch of salt here is something like common sense. The expression is used when something is deemed to be inaccurate.

Don’t try to pull the wool over my eyes!If you are deceived, you are not seeing things as they really are. The same goes for someone with wool over their eyes.

Honesty is the best policy.This is a proverb. Policy here means course of action and has nothing to do with insurance…or has it?

Tell the truth and shame the devil.Another proverb. The devil “is a liar and the father of lies.”John chapter 8 verse 44 (NIV)

He won’t give you a straight answer.Is there a polite way of suggesting someone is a liar?

You can’t pin her downBecause she isa slippery customer, perhaps.

It isn’t all that it seems.How often is there more to a situation than is immediately obvious?

To stretch the truth means to exaggerate. It makes for colourful story-telling, but listeners should be aware of what is happening. Perhaps the first saying of this batch comes in handy here!

“O what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!”is a quotation from Marmion by Sir Walter Scott.

Habitual liars need very good memories or they will soon be caught out.

I am going to introduce a new element to my blog here. From time to time I write poetry. Here is a poem I wrote maybe ten or more years ago.

God’s Word

It isn’t just a lot of pages
Read by searchers
Through the ages.
Do you know which Way it is?

It isn’t just the thoughts of man
Written for those
To learn who can.
Do you know whose Truth it is?

It isn’t just a set of rules
Kept by wise men
Broken by fools.
Do you know whose Life it is?